Ashes of Honor: An October Daye Novel

“Raj’s father,” I explained, for Jazz and May’s benefit. “He tried to kill us a little while ago. Actually, he nearly succeeded.”


“Well, when he failed, I guess he decided to take out his anger on something a little more defenseless,” said May. For the first time, I noticed the blood streaking the back of her blouse. May saw me looking. Her expression hardened. “He was a little surprised when I didn’t die. I guess no one told him Fetches are indestructible.”

“Lucky us,” I said quietly.

Spike slunk out from under the nearest couch, thorns rattling like bones in the wind. It stayed low to the ground as it crept to press itself against my feet. The pain in my head was abating, or at least that’s what I told myself as I stooped to gather my rose goblin’s thorny body into my arms. It promptly plastered itself into my chest, making small whimpering noises. I gritted my teeth and let it nestle. The thorns hurt when they broke my skin. That was nothing compared to what I’d already been through, and the day wasn’t over yet.

“Why did Raj’s father come here and try to kill us?” demanded May. “Why did he try to kill you? Dammit, Toby, what the hell is going on? You disappear all day, you don’t call, you don’t tell me what’s going on, and then a man I’ve never met before is here slamming my girlfriend into walls! Why is this happening?”

I swallowed hard, trying to figure out what to say. “I’m sorry” seemed insufficient. She was right. I should have been here when Samson came; I should have called and warned her that she might be in danger, if nothing else. But it had never occurred to me that he might come here, or that he’d take his anger at me out on my Fetch and her girlfriend.

“I’m sorry,” I said finally, choosing insufficiency over silence. May’s expression hardened further, until she might as well have been made of stone. “I didn’t know he would come here. Please believe me, I had no idea.”

“And I don’t understand why he would,” said Tybalt. “There was nothing here for him.”

“We may not be Toby, but we’re not ‘nothing,’” snarled May.

Tybalt put his hands up. “I did not mean to imply that you were nothing, merely that there was nothing here for Samson to find. Whatever he was looking for—”

“He was looking for me,” I said. All three of the other people in the room turned to me. I kept talking, saying, “The last he saw, we were falling into a hole that Chelsea tore in the world. I was pretty hurt, but he’s smart enough to know that I was going to heal and you weren’t. The smart thing for us to do would have been to split up, send you one way to get medical care, send me the other way to take care of Chelsea. How was he supposed to know we’d be total morons and stay together?”

“And the logical place for you to go would be here?” asked Tybalt.

May sighed. “Okay. Now we’ve hit something that’s not her fault. It’s mine. Tracking spells sometimes decide that I’m Toby. Something about me being made from her blood and bone confuses them, even though I’m not Dóchas Sidhe.”

“So he used a tracking spell, it led him here, and then he got pissed when he couldn’t find me,” I said. “That’s a big risk to take. I mean, killing me is going to open a pretty big can of worms…”

“But if his son has just been elevated to the throne of the Court of Dreaming Cats, he need never again enter a place where those consequences are his to face,” said Tybalt. He rubbed his face with one hand, looking unbearably weary. “Milady Fetch, I beg your forgiveness.”

“I’m not the one with the broken arm,” said May, putting a protective arm around Jazz’s shoulders. “Is he going to come back here?”

“I don’t know,” I said. I glanced to Tybalt, then back to the pair of them. “Call a taxi. Have it take you to Goldengreen. Count Lorden will let you stay there, and Marcia—”